SATS Volume 8 Issue 2

SATS

Volume 8 Issue 2

Contents
Journal Overview

Normative Constructivism. Hegel's Radical Social Philosophy

Kenneth R. Westphal March 16, 2010 Page range: 7-41

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Abstract

Onora O'Neill has contributed enormously to moral philosophy (broadly speaking, including both ethics and political philosophy) by identifying Kant's unique and powerful form of normative constructivism. Frederick Neuhouser has contributed similarly by showing that all of Hegel's standards of moral rationality aim to insure the complete development of three distinct, complementary forms of personal, moral and social freedom. However, Neuhouser's study does not examine Hegel's justificatory methods and principles. The present article aims to reinforce and extend Neuhouser's findings by explicating Hegel's basic principles for justifying practical norms. Surprisingly, Hegel's basic principles of normative justification are rooted in Kant's constructivism, as explicated by O'Neill. Hegel's adaptation and development of Kant's constructivism results in a powerful form of constructivism about moral principles which merits contemporary interest because it is more powerful and more objectivist than familiar contemporary forms of constructivism.

Thickening Holistic Pragmatism

Peter H. Hare March 16, 2010 Page range: 42-60

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Abstract

Since W. V. Quine propounded a thin holism in 1951 in “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” there has occurred an historical process in which investigators working more or less independently with widely different vocabularies in virtually every specialized area of philosophy and many other disciplines have thickened Quine's holistic web. Fierce critics of holism have often done as much to thicken holism as avid supporters. But we must not assume that increased thickness is to be identified with more extreme holism. Henry Jackman, for example, achieves greater thickness by moderating semantic holism. Pragmatists attribute a degree and type of holism in a specific context consonant with the thickest description available. Morton White finds Quine's holism unacceptable not because discontinuities cannot be found in experience but because Quine, in failing to appreciate the deep continuities between the normative and the descriptive, refuses to accept a thickening of our experience of the world.

Disentangling The Thick Concept Argument

Olle Blomberg March 16, 2010 Page range: 63-78

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Abstract

Critics argue that non-cognitivism cannot adequately account for the existence and nature of some thick moral concepts. They use the existence of thick concepts as a lever in an argument against non-cognitivism, here called the Thick Concept Argument (TCA). While TCA is frequently invoked, it is unfortunately rarely articulated. In this paper, TCA is first reconstructed on the basis of John McDowell's formulation of the argument (from Non-Cognitivism and Rule-Following, Routledge, 1981), and then evaluated in the light of several possible non-cognitivist responses. In general, TCA assumes too much about what a non-cognitivist is (or must be) committed to. There are several non-cognitivist theories, and only some fit the view attacked by TCA. Furthermore, TCA rests on a contestable intuition about a thought experiment, here called the External Standpoint Experiment (ESE). It is concluded that TCA is remarkably weak, given how frequently the argument is invoked.

On Presentist Perdurantism

Jiri Benovksy March 16, 2010 Page range: 79-88

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Abstract

The combination of perdurantism and presentism has an alleged nice advantage: it seems to avoid the ‘no-change objection’ to four-dimensionalism (non-presentist perdurantism). The purpose of this paper is, firstly, to argue that this is not true, and that the ‘no-change objection’ applies to presentist perdurantism with as much strength as it applies to four-dimensionalism, and secondly, that there are additional difficulties with this view, mainly due to the claim that wholes can have parts that don't exist.

Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument and Self Consciousness

Mark Addis March 16, 2010 Page range: 89-103

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Abstract

The private language argument in Wittgenstein has important implications for how self consciousness should be characterised. Some recent cognitivist theories claim that the self is really the sense of being a mental presence whilst the body is merely a container for these vital mental attributes. The cognitivist perspective emphasizes that mental states are internal to the mind thereby promoting the notion that the self is separate from the body. The private language argument is used to critique cognitivism through an examination of the notion of privacy which this conception of mental states depends upon. The assumption that the mental is essentially private leads to the supposition that it is intelligible to attribute self consciousness to either minds or bodies. On Wittgenstein's view new theories of the self are not required but a grammatical investigation into the employment of ‘self consciousness’ and its cognates (including their psychological and neuroscientific uses) is.

The Good, The Bad, and The Useful. Machiavelli's Abolition of Virtues

Paul-Erik Korvela March 16, 2010 Page range: 104-132

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Abstract

The article suggests that Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) is a crucial figure in a kind of understanding of politics in which no general rules can hope to grasp the contingent nature of political action, and that his “theory of politics” would inevitably mean the abolition of any virtues connected to political action. It is useful for the prince to remain “good” when he can but also to enter “evil” when necessary. In particular, this means shaking off the demands of Christian virtues, or any other essentially defeatist philosophies like that of the Stoics, which sing praise for the constancy of character in the face of changing fortune. Nevertheless, though Machiavelli's idea may contain an innuendo that those situations that require entering into evil would occur only occasionally, it is actually, according to him, a rather normal feature of political life. Machiavelli can thus be understood as the first exponent of the rather post-modern attitude towards politics. If politics is the art of dealing with the contingent event, where conditions do not remain serialized, reproduced or structured, it requires transformation from the actors themselves. No constancy of character is needed from successful political actors, and it is particularly imprudent to uphold some putatively eternal virtues that in the end prohibit the needed response to changing situations.

Stanley Cavell: Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004 (458 pp.)

Róbert H. Haraldsson March 16, 2010 Page range: 135-140

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All in One, or Almost So: The Contemporary State of a Universal Debate

Nikolaj Nottelmann March 16, 2010 Page range: 141-146

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Philip Hugly & Charles Sayward: Arithmetic and Ontology: A Non-Realist Philosophy of Arithmetic, edited by Pieranna Garavaso (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, vol. 90). Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2006 (393 pp.)

Claus Festersen March 16, 2010 Page range: 147-155

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About this journal

Mission statement

SATS publishes accessible, high-quality academic articles in all traditions and fields of philosophy. As a broad philosophy journal, it is our mission to promote philosophical dialogue across disciplinary boundaries, within philosophy and with neighboring fields. To achieve this, articles submitted to SATS should

be jargon-free and written in clear accessible prose
address a broad audience of philosophers and philosophically oriented academics
seek to contextualise the philosophical questions addressed

Contemporary academic philosophy is characterised by increased specialisation and small technical and scholarly debates. Although such discussions are crucial for the development and growth of knowledge, they require a counterbalance in the form of texts and contexts of broader scope. We believe that original research in philosophy can be written in a non-technical, lucid style and that philosophical discussions have much to gain from such work. To support a fruitful exchange of ideas, we encourage authors to explicate technical issues, and to clarify the relevance of their work to non-specialists.

We strongly support submissions that contextualise philosophy by bringing it into dialogue with other fields, for instance literary studies, history, sociology, anthropology, mathematics or the natural sciences. We also believe that philosophy benefits from dealing with the immediate concerns of modern societies, and that modern societies benefit from more engaged forms of philosophy. SATS is happy to provide a venue for articles that put philosophy to work beyond specialised philosophical discussions.

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